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The Country Girls Trilogy #1-3

The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue

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The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue is an absolutely engaging saga that is, thematically, about opposites - opposite dispositions and opposite views of life, the survivor versus the ungovernable romantic. It charts unflinchingly the pattern of life, for women, from the high spirits of youth to the chill of middle age, from hope to despair. It is both painful and hilarious.

532 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

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About the author

Edna O'Brien

102 books1,118 followers
Edna O’Brien is an award-winning Irish author of novels, plays, and short stories, has been hailed as one of the greatest chroniclers of the female experience in the twentieth century. She is the 2011 recipient of the Frank O’Connor Prize, awarded for her short story collection Saints and Sinners. She has also received, among other honors, the Irish PEN Award for Literature, the Ulysses Medal from University College Dublin, and a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Literary Academy. Her 1960 debut novel, The Country Girl, was banned in her native Ireland for its groundbreaking depictions of female sexuality. Notable works also include August Is a Wicked Month (1965), A Pagan Place (1970), Lantern Slides (1990), and The Light of Evening (2006). O’Brien lives in London.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 365 reviews
Profile Image for Magrat Ajostiernos.
624 reviews4,215 followers
June 21, 2019
Me ha gustado muchísimo, y eso que es un libro raro y a veces me ha sacado de quicio por sus personajes (a los que amas y odias con locura).
Pero ha sido un viaje maravilloso del que me quedo con la voz de Edna O'Brien, una autora con la que voy a repetir, porque tiene una fuerza y una intensidad increíble.
Esta trilogía (que recomiendo leer del tirón) narra la vida de dos amigas a lo largo de toda su vida, dos chicas "de campo" irlandesas, en plenos años 50. El libro ahonda sobre lo que suponía nacer mujer en Irlanda en esa época, en una sociedad tan machista y católica.
Es un libro muy feminista, consigue mostrar a la perfección la vida de estas mujeres cuyas vidas desde su nacimiento hasta su muerte estaban supeditadas a los deseos de los hombres.
Acabas el libro con mucha rabia, desencanto, pena. Pero es una gran lectura, que creo que me va a dejar un poso importante.
Ahora que no me venga nadie con lo de #notallmen porque MATO
Profile Image for Elena.
124 reviews1,062 followers
March 24, 2018
Madre mía. Esto no es para nada lo que esperaba encontrar en esta trilogía. Esperaba un relato divertido y nostálgico, a ratos edulcorado, a ratos sarcástico, crítico con su tiempo pero a la vez con momentos tiernos. Y lo que me he encontrado es una historia crudísima que me ha dejado bastante hecha polvo al final.
Enseguida ves que las dos protagonistas están lejos de ser personajes edulcorados y "perfectos". Sus virtudes y defectos van saliendo a partes iguales y las moldean a medida que van madurando. Muchas veces estaba totalmente en desacuerdo con sus decisiones, y aún así sólo podía esperar a que las cosas al final les fueran bien. Ser mujer nunca ha sido un camino de rosas, y la Irlanda católica de los años cincuenta-sesenta no es ninguna excepción.

- Las chicas de campo: 4*
En el primer libro conocemos a Caithleen y a Baba, dos amigas con una relación bastante peculiar y con dos temperamentos bastante opuestos. Su infancia en la Irlanda rural estará marcada por sus circunstancias familiares, su personalidad, por carencias e ilusiones.

- La chica de ojos verdes: 2.5-3*:
Me ha parecido el más flojo. Las protagonistas están en el final de su adolescencia/principio de su veintena. Por desgracia, durante bastante parte del libro Baba está ausente y sólo seguimos la historia de Caithleen. Para mi, ha sido el más flojo porque creo que se recrea una y otra vez en lo mismo (la relación de Kate con un hombre casado) y creo que desaprovecha otras tramas.

- Chicas felizmente casadas: 4*
A pesar de que por lo que he visto mucha gente lo considera el más flojo de la trilogía a mi me ha parecido que la forma cómo está contada la historia en este libro es la justa para que cobre la fuerza que merece. En este libro BABA toma las riendas con capítulos contados en primera persona que se alternan con capítulos de Kate (Caithleen) en tercera (como hasta ahora). La voz de Baba es sarcástica, mordaz y cruda, y es imprescindible para contar el final de la historia de las dos amigas.
Profile Image for Sara.
140 reviews50 followers
August 3, 2012
The smartest and most hilarious possible response to the catastrophe of being born female in the rural west of Ireland at mid-century.

The trilogy actually encompasses three books – The Country Girls, The Lonely Girl, and Girls in Their Married Bliss. They follow the highly intelligent but spacy Caithleen and her forcefully self-centered “best” friend Baba on a trajectory that huge numbers of Irish women’s lives took during those decades – from farm to convent school to Dublin and finally into London. The books make no claims, however, as to their representative status. Instead, the first two books stay scrupulously grounded in the consciousness of Caithleen, our first-person narrator, who proves a good story teller, if a bad interpreter of what precisely the story means. All sorts of men crowd themselves into the orphaned Caithleen’s life, and part of the first novel’s tension comes from the judgments the reader will inevitably make about who might help Kate out and who might do her ill: judgments Caithleen seems unable to form for herself. But by the second book we’ve been served notice that our Jane-Eyre-inflected fantasies of upward mobility skew OUR perception quite badly, and it becomes apparent what Caithleen needs the chain-smoking, good-time-grabbing, light-me-a-cigarette-will-ya Baba for. What seems like Baba’s destruction of Caithleen’s chances to “make something of herself” in the first book is decidedly revealed in the second book as a narrow escape.

I was a bit apprehensive about the third book, which abandons Caithleen’s first-person narration for chapters that, when dealing with Caithleen, are written with an elegant third-person omniscience, and when dealing with Baba, are written in Baba’s voice. The Baba chapters are among the funniest in a very funny trilogy. The Caithleen chapters are a bit sad – not just because the content is sad, but because the author can no longer imagine Caithleen speaking for herself about what it’s like to be Caithleen. At some point Edna O’Brien escaped being Caithleen by becoming a world-famous author. That she doesn’t lazily award Caithleen the same ending is to her credit. That she can only approach Caithleen from the outside, using the compensations of her own much more worldly voice to bring her near us suggests something about Caithleen – or thousands of women like her – that got lost for good.

At the very end of the trilogy, Baba finds Kate reading “a newspaper article about women who for the purpose of scientific experiment had volunteered to spend a fortnight in an underground cave. Kate read: ‘Doctors in touch by telephone from an adjacent cave continue to be astonished at the physical resilience and lively spirits of the women, who were unknown to each other before the vigil began.’” And that’s pretty much what the entire trilogy is about – listening in from another cave, and discovering that even when buried underground, smothered in dark, small spaces, women keep chattering and laughing and carrying on.
Profile Image for Fuchsia  Groan.
162 reviews194 followers
August 27, 2018
La publicación de la primera novela de esta trilogía, Las chicas de campo, supuso una conmoción en la sociedad irlandesa de comienzos de los años 60, hasta el punto de que el párroco de Tuamgraney, localidad de origen de la autora, consiguió tres de los cuatro ejemplares que se pusieron a la venta en Irlanda y los quemó en público.

Este hecho sin duda suscitará la curiosidad de la mayoría, pero el que espere una historia escandalosa se sentirá decepcionado. Y esa decepción sin duda dice mucho de la mentalidad de la época y la misoginia imperante en aquella sociedad ultraconservadora: al final, lo escandaloso era el reconocimiento de las ansias de libertad e independencia, de la sexualidad de las protagonistas, y no tanto otros hechos que se narran que sí son abominables.

En la primera novela conoceremos a Caithleen y a Baba, dos niñas al comenzar el libro, habitantes de una pequeña localidad rural en la Irlanda de los años 50. Compañeras de colegio, pudiera parecer que no tienen más que eso en común: Caithleen Brady es dependiente y temerosa, ama a su madre y se aferra a ella con temor, pero la pierde siendo aún niña, quedando desamparada junto a un padre alcohólico y violento. Baba Brennan es rebelde, dominante y decidida, y proviene de una familia acomodada. Ambas forjan una amistad maravillosamente descrita, compleja y real, de dependencia por parte de ambas, de amor y rechazo, siendo a la vez enemigas y aliadas.

Este primer libro es mi preferido de los tres, tanto por esos primeros pasos hacia una amistad memorable y la manera en que refleja el paso de la infancia a la adolescencia de las dos protagonistas, como por los personajes secundarios, todos perfectamente retratados, y la oprimente atmósfera religiosa, claustrofóbica, y de la que es realmente complicado escapar, pero que describe con ternura, humor incluso, sin quitarle por ello todo el horror que supone.

En La chica de ojos verdes asistimos al viaje hacia la madurez, el paso a la vida adulta, la independencia que consiguen al mudarse juntas a Dublín, las primeras relaciones, las fiestas y sus sueños, el descubrimiento de un mundo radicalmente distinto. Creo que en este segundo volumen se pierde algo del encanto.

Finalmente, en Chicas felizmente casadas, vemos ya a las protagonistas en su vida adulta, con sus sueños cumplidos (aunque, quizás, no de la manera soñada), en un cierre realista, con satisfacciones y amarguras, alegrías y desilusiones, a veces resultado de malas elecciones, que me ha supuesto un pequeño puñetazo en el estómago. Pese a que esos puñetazos suelen ser buena señal, es el volumen que menos me ha gustado. Confieso que no sé explicar del todo las razones, los cambios en la voz narradora no me han gustado, y quizás los hechos me han hecho algo de daño y me niego a admitir que yo, en contra de todos mis principios, deseaba un final algo más edulcorado.

Con todo, Las chicas de campo es una trilogía sumamente recomendable, sencilla y auténtica, que refleja de maravilla la sociedad irlandesa de la época, sociedad que Edna O’Brien sufrió en sus propias carnes, dejando reflejadas sus propias vivencias en estas páginas (de hecho, el título de su autobiografía es Chica de campo).
Profile Image for Wilhelmina Jenkins.
242 reviews209 followers
August 10, 2008
Reading this trilogy was an interesting experience for me because I read the first two books, The Country Girls and The Lonely Girl, as a teenager back in the '60s. In my opinion, those two books held up very well. Kate and Baba are best friends, although Baba frequently treats Kate, the more scholarly and sensitive girl, quite unkindly. Ultimately, the girls, later women, are the constant factor in each other's lives. Searching for a life beyond their restrictive small town life and convent school, they escape to Dublin and seek happiness in their relationships with men.

By the third book, Girls in their Married Bliss, they are attempting to live with their poor choices and deal with the unhappy consequences. This book, in my opinion, is the least successful of the three. If I had read the third book as a stand-alone, I do not think that I would have enjoyed it at all. Sandwiched between Lonely Girl and the epilogue, however, it adds to the understanding of these women and the difficult lives they have chosen. I found the Epilogue to be touching and heartbreaking. I would recommend reading these books all of the way through the epilogue to obtain the complete picture that O'Brien presents of the intertwined lives of these women.
Profile Image for Yulia.
339 reviews316 followers
November 20, 2008
What a roller coaster this put me on. While reading it, I was sincerely frightened for the characters and for my own fate in life, I pounded the pillow in helpless distress and needed to be comforted by Frank that, if it made me feel so much, she must be doing something right. But it was agony, not beautiful agony, but masochistic, call-your-therapist agony. The pain it induced was more than I'd bargained for. As I approached the end, I thought, this is a work I want to own, to add to my colection while is already filled in terms of shelf space. This is a book I can't forget and don't want to, like a tragic ending to the closest friendship of my life. And just an hour after finishing it, it felt as if a pillowcase that had been blinding me had been lifted. IO saw everything more clearly. How could O'Brien put me through such pain? Did she realize there was not one sympathetic male character in her entire trilogy (excepting Snowie perhaps)? Did she want women to call of romance and seek only the comfort of female friendships? Was life truly such a lost cause? Was there nothing to be gained or learned from our experiences? And now I'm left feeling deceived by her, as if I'd been caught up in a man-hating cult of abandoned women who still craved their drug.

This book was torture, good torture, then cruel torture, then unnecessary torture. I want my grounding on reality back. May no single woman in search of true companionship read this book. May no woman in a failing relationship read this, either. May no man waste his time on it. No, this book didn't end up a failure. It was sentimental, but saved by its humor, and deeply moving as only a roller coaster that has been derailed can move you.

Looking back on this destabilizing half-week experience in which I could do nothing but read this book or worry about reading on, for fear I would be further traumatized, I remember now who it was whore assured me as I cried in hopelessness or went into a panic. Yes, it was my partner, a concept that O'Brien's characters cannot fathom in this chronicle. What I'm left with is a love-hate relationship. I hate this book for torturing me as it did, but I love it for invoking such strong feelings. Thank goodness there is life outside this trilogy. If this were an accurate portrayal of human relations, I think I'd kill myself.

But my fault was in over-identifying with the literate and romantic Caithleen, even as she proceeds to lose her grip on reality. Warning: these characters are extremes. I wouldn't identify too closely with any if I could avoid it. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at dividing the literary world from the literal world.

Good luck to readers and have a supportive partner or an excellent therapist should you choose to read this. I regret recommending it to my mother.

Some lines I wanted to remember, for one reason or another (no use questioning their profundity):

"He was only a shadow now, and I remembered him the way one remembers a nice dress that one has grown out of" (p. 179, not this edition)

"I used to think of my life as a failure, purposeless . . . until I got older and became aware of things. I now know that the problem of life is not solved by success but by failure: struggle and achievement and failure, on and on" (p. 220).

"He directed documentary pictures but was always buying leisure, as if in the course of leisure he must found what he had been ordained to do" (p. 391).

"'Baba, why did you do it to me?' he said. Useless to say that I hadn't thought of him when I was doing it. Useless to say that I always thought your acquaintanceship with one person had nothing to do with another" (p. 471).

"She closed her eyes on the thought that sleeping with a man was unimportant. A nothing, if nothing in the way of love preceded it. Or resulted from it" (p. 500).
Profile Image for D.
526 reviews75 followers
March 17, 2021
Three books and a short epilogue telling the sorry tale of two girls growing up as friends in theocratic rural Ireland, probably in the mid-1960's. Of course, religious belief played a big role in their misfortunes, messing up their decision making skills as adults. Still, it was hard to feel sympathy for any of them. Nevertheless, a very good en engrossing read that won't be easy to forget.
Profile Image for Bethany.
641 reviews64 followers
April 26, 2011
I honestly don’t know what to say about this trilogy. I’m not even sure how I felt about it, really. I can’t say I loved these books, no; I didn’t love them. None of the characters were lovable, not even the main characters Baba and Caithleen. Yet I couldn’t help but care what happened to them. Even as I watched their lives spiral downwards, them make decision upon bad decision; nothing could’ve induced me to stop reading. It wasn’t like being unable to look away from a train wreck yet I suppose it kind of was. (I’m not making any sense, I know.)

The middle book, The Lonely Girl, was my favourite. The last book, Girls in their Married Bliss, was my least favourite, being the most painful to read. I can just imagine Edna O’Brien choosing that title with an ironic, bitter twist to her smile.
The Epilogue was, in my opinion, completely unnecessary and I would’ve been happier without it. Especially since, though it was only 20 pages long, it contained 10 times the amount of expletives as the other 510 pages. I wish I was kidding.

I don’t know why I was so drawn to these books! Looking back, I wonder why I didn’t hate them. As I said before, none of the characters were lovable. There was not a single good relationship in this book, not even in the strange friendship between Baba and Caithleen.
The prose didn’t strike me as being particularly exceptional. Perhaps it was, though. At least, Edna O’Brien did a lovely job conjuring up the setting. Actually, I can see several scenes in my head as if I had just finished watching a film of it.
There was something so oddly affecting about these books. Not touching, exactly. More distressing than anything. And even with the ache of these books fresh in my mind, I know I will be re-reading them someday in the future.
Profile Image for Barbara.
363 reviews80 followers
November 14, 2014
Edna O'Brien catches the details of a culture and a period of time that seems to have occurred one hundred years ago rather than in the early 1960's. She writes with an honesty and lack of sentimentality that drew me into the story and the characters. My criticisms are all minor compared to those qualities.
Profile Image for Claire.
701 reviews307 followers
March 6, 2023
The Country Girls

Childhood in the west Irish countryside, early adulthood in a boarding house in Dublin, marriage in London; the three books follow the lives of two girls Caithleen (Kate) and Bridget (Baba),who were neighbours and school friends and room mates. Though not people who had much in common, except their shared history, without that, their lives might have been much worse.
She had been nice to me for several weeks since Mama died, but when there were other girls around she always made little of me.

Caitheen loses her mother early on, a drowning accident and spends time at her friend Baba's house, due to the drunken binges her father goes on, his erratic behaviour causing them to lose their home.
I was never safe in my thoughts,because when I thought of things I was afraid.So I visited people every day, and not once did I go over the road to look at our own house.

A scholarship helps her to get an education, but Baba's idea to get them expelled, cuts short any opportunity Kate may have had to rise above the shop girl she will become.

Baba's home life had been more carefree, her father is the local vet, her mother laid back, she yearned not for much and was used to home comforts. She could be unkind and had little empathy for others, she happily insulted her friend, was shallow, less intelligent and avoided trouble unless using it for a specific outcome. She wanted to have fun, be entertained, free of consequence.

Dublin initially gives them freedom and excitement, a neon fairyland, it promises much to look forward to.
Forever more I would be restless for crowds and lights and noise. I had gone from sad noises, the lonely rain pelting on the galvanized roof of the chicken house; the moans of a cow in the night, when her calf was being born under a tree.


The first book is their coming-of-age, into this atmosphere of loss arrives one overly friendly neighbour Mr Gentleman, a married man who inappropriately eyes up the vulnerable young Caithleen, offering her a ride into the town, buying her lunch, indulging her with experiences that makeup for the loss and lack of love she feels, not realising she is prey, only knowing how the attention makes her feel. It is the beginning of a pattern of disappointments concerning men in her life.

The Lonely Girl
Caithleen meets Eugene,something about him (half foreign, older man) reminds her of Mr Gentleman, whom she hasn't seen for 2 years. The girls now live in Joanna and Gustav's boarding house and become a little like family in this house, sometimes confiding in Joanna, who struggles to maintain rules and boundaries with the girls.
For once I was not lonely, because I was with someone I wanted to be with.

They have one rough friend Body, who is one of the few they can rely on to escort them to dances. Neither of them are in relationships, but Caithleen yearns for the enigmatic Eugene. News of him travels to her father after he receives an anonymous letter.
One sadness recalls another: I stood there beside the new, crumpled coat and remembered the night my mother was drowned and how I clung to the foolish hope that it was all a mistake and that she would walk into the room, asking people why they mourned her. I prayed that he would not be married.

He brings her home and she is forced to have an audience with the bishop - a divorced man is deemed worse than a murderer and all kinds of terrible things are said to be going to befall her in the afterlife.
"Divorce is worse than murder," my aunt had always said- I would never forget it; that and their staring disapproval.

Running towards Eugene brings out all her insecurities and yearnings, her lack of purpose. His age, his independence, career, worldliness, his friends - all are far from her reality. She finds some kind of comfort in his detached way of caring for her. In her immaturity, she desires to be pursued by him, as if to prove his love. It backfires, she will again feel the wound of abandonment, having acted out its consequence, the clingy holding on, the fear of disconnection and imagining potential threats to their relationship and the leaving while wishing to be pursued, only to re-experience the rejection inherent in that abandonment.

Baba tells Caithleen she is leaving for London, Baba has always been loved, but she does not use this strength to foster good in her relationships. She exhibits an emotional superiority that has inflated her self-esteem, despite her lower intelligence. Easily bored she entertains herself through extrovert behaviour and belittling others, she is decisive because she rarely compromises.

Girls in Their Married Bliss
Again time passes, so that when we encounter the girls, they are on the cusp of marriage, Kate will marry the one who abandoned her and Baba, a man who can provide for her in the manner she has desires. One desires love, the other security. Sadly, there's not much in the way of bliss.

The third book has a different feel as it is the only one narrated by Baba, so there is more of distance from Kate, who we view in the third person.
She had plans for them both to leave their husbands one day when they'd accumulated furs and diamonds, just as once she had planned that they would meet and marry rich men and livein houses with bottle of grog opened, and unopened, on silver trays.

The girls drift away from each other and then come back as their lives hit various ups and downs. To some extent Kate is fulfilled by her son, but the disintegration of the relationship with her husband sets up more loss and abandonment in her life.

These are novels written in 1960's that hold nothing back, they explore the psychological depths of these two young women who grew up in a conservative Ireland, with its social problems and moral expectations, which little equipped young women pushed from the nest into the world of destructive vice and little virtue.
She said it was the emptiness that was the worst, the void.

Profile Image for María.
42 reviews15 followers
March 25, 2022
Hay personas que se pasan la vida buscando, y anhelando, un estado idealizado de amor que suponga el "fueron felices para siempre. Fin". Personas que se creen el cuento del príncipe azul que llegará para salvarlas, y se quedan esperando su llegada. Y mientras tanto, su vida transcurre entre expectativas y decepciones.

Así es la vida de nuestras chicas de campo, Kate y Baba. La historia de dos niñas que se convierten en mujeres que deben enfrentar por sí mismas a los monstruos del patriarcado, el machismo, la soledad, la tristeza, la pérdida, la religión..., pero sobre todo enfrentar una realidad muy distinta de la ilusión.

Kate es una joven soñadora, que enfrenta una situación familiar difícil, que la impulsa a la búsqueda de afecto, y de la relación perfecta. Baba es una chica cínica, que sabe muy bien lo que necesita: llamar la atención, y conseguir dinero.

Con una narración muy fluida, Edna O'Brien nos guía a través de una historia llena de personajes imperfectos enfrentando la vida como pueden. Una lectura que no te deja indiferente, porque mientras la lees te enfadas con las chicas, te indignas, sufres, ríes y lloras.
Profile Image for Emmkay.
1,260 reviews120 followers
October 6, 2018
Loved it. The trilogy consists of 3 novels - The Country Girls, The Lonely Girl, and Girls in their Married Bliss - and an epilogue, focusing on a pair of friends whom we first encounter as 14 year olds in a rural Irish village. I wondered if Elena Ferrante read these before writing the Neapolitan novels, because there were certainly similarities in the relationship between the two girls and in the acute social and gender commentary (but with more of a focus on the church as well in O’Brien). But as the trilogy continues, it takes off in a bleak and bold direction in which . I read it compulsively, powerful stuff.
363 reviews63 followers
September 25, 2015
I tried to make it through this, I really did. I even made it to the third book. I got a little excited when I thought Baba was going to narrate, but when it went back to Kathleen, I was just DONE. Don't get me wrong, Baba is just as despicable as Kathleen, but for different reasons. I might have finished then. But no. We go back to Kathleen's drivel. She is a spineless, whiny, reprehensible person, her family is awful, her boyfriends are awful; ugh, I just could take no more. I gave it two stars because the story did hold my attention through two books.
Profile Image for Dem.
1,216 reviews1,279 followers
April 20, 2011
This was a bookclub read, I liked the book however found it a bit far fetched. This book was banned in Ireland and therefore always had a bit of a mysterious edge to it, its an interesting story and a very good discussion book as it throws up lots topics that get people talking. Glad I read it.
Profile Image for Mientras Leo.
1,548 reviews179 followers
July 15, 2018
Está bien, más o menos lo que esperaba, algo mucho más trágico de lo que se pinta y una invitación a reflexionar a ratos sobre nacer mujer
Profile Image for Lesley.
120 reviews22 followers
September 7, 2020
As a trilogy, this was like going out for a big meal. The starter’s amazing, the main course is ho-hum, and you wish you hadn’t ordered dessert as well. ‘The country girls’ is a joy: sharp, witty, moving, and the characters are beautifully done, especially the ‘best friend’ Baba who is a controlling little bitch but gets some great lines. You can smell the fields and the tobacco-laden interiors and the endless whisky breath, and the teenage ennui and conflicting feelings, wanting excitement and rebellion and safety and comfort at the same time are done perfectly. ‘The lonely girl’ involves a lot of weeping and I got a bit bored, while ‘Girls in their married bliss’ was too bitter and cynical even for me. Couldn’t fault the writing, but the central character throwing herself at one dubious married man after another wore rather thin.

Also, the great shock value these books had at the time of publication was centred on the scandalous idea of young women being interested in the pleasures of the flesh and not going to church. To my mind, the utter normality of endless predatory older men sniffing around two young teenage girls was far more shocking.
Profile Image for Jonathan Pool.
598 reviews112 followers
May 24, 2022
I have been aware of Edna O’Brien’s early work, and Country Girls in particular, for some time.
Does this book live up to my heightened expectations? One hundred pages in I was underwhelmed.
This, after all, is the book banned by Ireland's censorship board on June 21, 1960 for its explicit sexual content and described as “filth”.
Would this have happened if the DH Lawrence Lady Chatterley’s Lover court case in London in August 1960 had happened nine months before?
Lolita was published in 1955.
This is the Ireland of James Joyce.

This is a character driven book, and some characters leaped off the page.
The Brennan women, particularly, are intriguing. Mother, Martha, is described as wanting two things: “drink and admiration“ , and yet the reader is itching for her to show up her local village for the parochial killjoys that they are. Martha’s daughter Baba (Bridget) is flighty, selfish, untrustworthy, and compelling.
Caithleen Brady is just fourteen at the start of the book. She is prim, repressed, naïve, and generally fearful of her elders (& betters!). When she and Baba leave home in rural Ireland; convent educated, they “began a phase of life as the giddy country girls” on the train to Dublin”

The gist of the story is that young women need to beware of predatory men, and to wise up quickly (and have good, reliable girlfriends). Its not necessarily young boys/men who need to be watched carefully, but older men (“old” meaning aged forty or above) who have the trappings of wealth and status (a car, money to afford fancy restaurants). Men who should know better.
Jack Holland, Mr. du Maurier (Mr Gentleman), and Reginald and Harry represent different degrees of danger, and it’s a necessary learning curve (and luck) for young women to negotiate.

The lack of sex education (from family or school) is shocking by today’s standards. Cait is not worried about the risks of pregnancy – she knows you have to have been married a while for this to happen..

As I reflected on the book a week later, I realised that I needed to have tried better to transport myself back to a different (post war) world. The absence of graphic, realised tragedy does not disguise the shocking risks to women in Ireland in 1960. I’m glad to have read this book and recognise its place in helping to effect changes in society ahead of the ‘swinging sixties’.
Profile Image for Sara.
397 reviews2 followers
January 21, 2016
The Country Girls Trilogy and Epilogue is a compilation of three novels that span the lives of two girls, from childhood through middle age, who were both rivals and friends in rural Ireland. The first of the three novels, The Country Girls introduces us to Caithleen and Baba. Caithleen is practically raised by a single mother, her father often drunk and absent, leaving them with little or no money most days, while Baba's father is good provider who comes home every night, even if the family isn't exactly a happy one. Together they go off to a convent school, Caithleen on scholarship, Baba out of jealousy. The second book in the set, Lonely Girls (more commonly known by the name Girl With Green Eyes), picks up where the first leaves off, in Dublin, where the girls are set to start their lives. They live together as boarders, Baba to attend school, and Caithleen working in a grocery. What they are really looking for though is freedom and men, rich if Baba has anything to say about it. The final book of the series, Girls In Their Married Bliss opens with both of the girls marriages, both of them seemingly getting exactly what they wanted. Yet nothing is ever as it seems, and life still has many surprises in store for both of them.

Both the first and second book were told by Caithleen, later known as Kate, while the last of the trilogy and the epilogue are narrated by Baba. Kate was often ruled by her emotions, and though intelligent, she let her feelings blind her to common sense and reality. Baba is far more pragmatic; she is also brazen and bold, and in my opinion makes a far more interesting character, though Kate's story is richer. In the end, I quite enjoyed all of the books and I'm glad I read them together in one book, because I'm not sure that I would have made a point to continue soon after the first.

Both The Country Girls and Girl With Green Eyes can be found on the list of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, though I actually enjoyed the last book far more. The story told in Married Bliss, while much darker, was more interesting and far richer. Yet, without the first two preceding it, it couldn't have been told. These are quintessential coming-of-age stories, both realistic and tragic, telling a story that unfolds every day, in every town and city.
Profile Image for Gergana Karadjova.
102 reviews22 followers
October 26, 2020
Важна книга за 20век в Ирландия. Противоречива, едновременно интимна и обществено значима, “женска” книга. Освен социалния фон обаче, важни за мен бяха фино изградените образи - на Кейт, която няма как да харесвам (мъченицата/ жертва) и на Баба (Бриджит/ Барбра, светицата, която се превръща в светска жена). Трилогията минава през травмирано детство и abusive relationship, манипулативни отношения и почвата им върху безличието, слабостта и подчинението в прекършената рано психика. Колко по-ясен и прост е животът, когато говори Баба, колко трагично-жалка е и си остава Кейт. От двете екранизации предпочитам тази на втората част “Момичето със зелените очи”. Версията със Сам Нийл от 1983 е почти отблъскваща трактовка.
Profile Image for María.
167 reviews100 followers
April 24, 2022
La primera parte está muy bien, la Segunda tiene sus momentos y la tercera es un completo desastre en todos los sentidos. El final de verdad que destroza a los personajes y al lector....
236 reviews
February 11, 2022
No sé que opinar de este libro. Me hacía mucha ilusión leerlo y ha sido frustrante.
No me gusta, pero tampoco es un horror. Creo que si hubiera que definirlo con una palabra seria decepcionante.

El primer libro sirve de presentación a los personajes, que tampoco me emocionaron, pero bueno, eran dos crias, había que dejar que evolucionaran. El segundo mejoró un poco, para mi es el mejor de los tres, porque sinceramente, el último me parece muy irregular y cansino, cambiamos de narrador, ya no es Kate la que cuenta la historia, sino Baba, que se ha pasado medio desparecida en el segundo tomo.

Personalmente creo que el principal problema del libro son los altibajos en la historia, la trama parece que se eleva y que te va a llevar por un camino emocionante y ploff se desinfla, y eso pasa varias veces, lo que llega a ser frustrante. Sinceramente los dos últimos capítulos del libro me los he leído en diagonal, porque no me interesaba nada de los personajes, solo quería acabar el libro y pasar a otra lectura que me llene más.

A su favor diré que entiendo que el libro y la manera cruda de llamar a las cosas por su nombre, fuera de convencionalismos sociales y roles establecidos me ha gustado. He comprendido porque el libro fue tan escandaloso en su época, pero a estas alturas de la película (pleno siglo XXI) Kate y Baba me parecen dos personas tóxicas para ellas mismas y para los demás, siempre esperando que otro les saque las castañas del fuego y les solucione la vida. En resumen dos chicas a las que la vida les dio limones y no supieron hacer limonada.


Profile Image for Gail.
372 reviews9 followers
October 18, 2014
I've only read the first part so far; waiting for the complete edition from Amazon.

O'Brien captures perfectly, in my opinion, the era and place she is concerned with. Not as downtrodden as "Angela's Ashes" by any means, but certainly far, far from sweetness and light. The pervading sadness and sense of claustrophobia subsuming the girls' lives struck me as true to life. The Catholic upbringing and the narrowness of the girls' options reflect my memories of those days pretty well. (Of course, we had many more options here in the U.S.)I was suprised a bit at others becoming so impatient with Cait and Baba's behaviors. I'm looking forward to seeing how their lives "turn out".

Updated October 30, 2009: I finished the entire trilogy earlier this month; found that I had to go back and re-read the first section to refresh my memory and to get back into the "feel" of the story. Although there are many comical passages, the overwhelming sensation is one of depression and hopelessness. Even Baba, by far the more resiliant of the two girls, leads an unhappy life in an almost helpless sort of way.

Well worth reading, if only to remind us of how far women have come in the intervening thirty years.
Profile Image for L.A.Weekly.
35 reviews23 followers
June 30, 2008
EDNA O'BRIEN: IRELAND'S OTHER LITERARY HEAVYWEIGHT
By Jim Ruland

O’Brien’s relationship with Ireland has always been a cantankerous one. Her first novel, The Country Girls, written in 1959 during a three-week frenzy, was condemned by the minister of culture as a “smear on Irish womanhood.” The book, which deals with the sexual awakening of a young woman from a small village in west Ireland, was promptly banned. As were her next eight novels.

The problem? O’Brien writes about sex and its repercussions in a way that is graphic, frank and utterly unheard of in conservative, “priest-plagued” Ireland. Her first three novels follow the adventures of Caithleen and Baba as they flee their convent school in rural Ireland, find considerably older husbands in Dublin, and confront their failed marriages in London. Along the way, the girls conceive out of wedlock, have extramarital affairs and contract venereal disease.

Read the rest of Jim Ruland's article on Edna O'Brien here:
http://www.laweekly.com/art+books/boo...

Profile Image for Ilse Wouters.
245 reviews6 followers
June 28, 2016
This book is the collection of 3 separate books which were published in the 1960s followed by an epilogue written in 1986, all dealing with the same main characters, Caithleen and Baba, from their childhood in the Irish countryside to their married years in London. The first 2 books are narrated by Caithleen, while the third one is told mainly from the perspective of Baba.
I see here a lot of very high ratings for this book, but I have double feelings : on one hand, the books are clearly well written, and I was eager to finish reading everything; on the other hand, I wasn´t too impressed - to say the least - by the main characters. It´s most likely the story told ressembles the life of quite a few Irish country girls mid-20th century (especially the differences according to gender), but I feel saddened by the fact that they ultimately seem to have ruined their own chances in life. The epilogue sort of confirms this, although I don´t think it was necessary to write the epilogue to clarify it all.
Profile Image for Dana.
171 reviews45 followers
September 23, 2018
3*5. Primele două părți - 4*, ultima parte cam de 3*.
Profile Image for Laura.
333 reviews1 follower
February 2, 2021
La primera part i la segona ❤️❤️❤️. La tercera se m'ha fet bola. Però en conjunt aqueata trilogia m'ha enamorat, tot i que no trago ni la Kate ni la Baba. M'han semblat totes dues bastant insuportables. Però no sé ben bé com, al final volia que les coses els anéssin bé.
Profile Image for Jane M.
19 reviews
June 10, 2014
I was really excited about this book. There are some very dramatic review on here and I expected a story more along the lines of Half Broke Horse. This was just kind of boring and the main characters really had me not rooting for them much. I thought this was supposed to be a tale of girls bucking society/church norms by living and doing what they want, but these girls really didn't do much of anything.

Guess I wanted a tale of strong women, but got a long drawn out "diary" about silly girls that never really seemed to have grown up.
Profile Image for Lucelia .
215 reviews
July 17, 2020
En este libro nos encontramos en un solo tomo la trilogía de Las Chicas de Campo, la historia de Kate y Baba en la Irlanda de lo que serían los años cincuenta, en la primera parte la autora las presenta como niñas y al final hemos recorrido todo un camino con este par. La novela y la forma de escribir de esta mujer me han encantado, si bien me parece que la voz de Kate es predominante, es la de Baba la que más me encantó, son completamente diferentes y fascinantes, ver como se perciben la una a la otra y sus pensamientos es algo que me ha encantado de la novela.

No es una historia romántica y si bien se puede ver mucho de las costumbres de la Irlanda de la época, lo que más resalta es la lucha de ser mujer en esa sociedad en la que los hombre son casi todo poderosos, toman las decisiones y de cierta forma rigen su destino; donde es tan difícil para ellas elegir un camino y más cuando todo lo ven a través de la religión, donde les parece mejor que una hija este con un padre borracho y maltratador que con un hombre que dañe su reputación, aunque dicho hombre no sea de mi agrado, es terrible ver lo difícil que les es determinar su camino.

El camino que recorren es largo y son personajes imperfectos que a veces quieres abrazar y en otras los detestas; mi personaje favorito es Baba, tengo que decir que al inicio me cayó muy mal, pero cuando la escuche, no pude evitar enamorarme del personaje y reírme con sus ocurrencias y compadecerle por sus sufrimientos.

Esta es una historia de altos y bajos, de malas decisiones, de la relación entre ellas y los hombre de sus vidas que la verdad no tienen muy buenos resultados, muchas veces relaciones de dependencia, de su amistad, del amor que se tienen como amigas y de odiarse a momentos, pero al final siempre podían contar la una con la otra.
Profile Image for Simona Stoica.
Author 14 books745 followers
July 26, 2018
Cuvântul „interzis” este foarte atractiv; nu poți să-l ignori când citești trilogia „Fetele de la țară”, 752 de pagini în care uiți cine este autorul: Edna O'Brien sau Thomas Hardy. Kate și Baba sunt două adolescente excentrice și visătoare, nerăbdătoare să își savureze libertatea și să își uite originile. Vor să fie iubite, admirate și râvnite, dar sunt manipulate, înșelate și rănite. Prietenia lor, dacă poate să fie numită așa, e foarte ciudată și toxică, o dependență care începe (încă) din copilărie, când Baba e cea rea și vulcanică, iar Kate cea bună și inocentă. Stilul liric, atmosfera minunat redată, descrierile vii, aproape melancolice, sunt doar câteva surprize pregătite de autoare.
Profile Image for Sonya.
825 reviews198 followers
May 24, 2021
The first and second novels of this trilogy follow Caithleen (Kate) from girlhood to her late teens as she observes her family life in the country as part of a poor family and slowly awakens to the joys and pains of life. She has a best friend named Baba who bullies Kate, and though she's bratty and brazen, Baba also provides Kate over the course of years with a stable and loving friend. Kate's father is a mean alcoholic and her mother is kind but weak. As the family breaks apart and Kate is first sent off to convent school and then tries to start an adult life in Dublin, she is always aware of natural beauty and the humanity inside odd and difficult people. Her love life takes over and things take a turn. She is initiated into adult behavior and falls in love with an older man and matures.

But the third novel is a whiplashed departure from the tenderness of the first two. And because the point of view switches from first person to third (and some chapters from Baba's perspective), Kate's strong voice and ways of seeing the world are lost. As her character recedes into the narrative, so do her chances for happiness.

As a whole, the three novels are beautiful and full of empathy for their characters. The novels were considered scandalous by Irish society and the Church, unsurprisingly, because O'Brien's stories prick the secretive oppressions of life during that post-War time and show what it was like for women.

(I did not much like the epilogue, written in the 1980s.)
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